Comparing Best Times not always working correctly and not sure why - string

Question

This is for VB.NET 2017. I am creating a program and keeping score with the best time. The timer in the program runs like a stopwatch. I would like at the end to compare the best record from a past game with the current time of a new game. If the new game has a faster time then I would like to replace it on the data file. I can do that just fine but sometimes it will put a slower time ahead of the fastest time. I have tried multiple scenarios and cannot get it consistent. If anyone could help that would be appreciated very much. I have some message boxes so I can see some outcomes. They will be commented out later when it is working properly.
If TotalBalls = 2 And SelectPoison = 2 Then
tmrTime.Enabled = False
CurrentScore = lblTime.Text
MsgBox("You win.")
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' CurrentScore = lblTime.Text
MsgBox("Current Time is " & CurrentScore)
NewScoreCheck = String.Compare(CurrentScore, RecordHighScore)
MsgBox(NEwScoreCheck)
'NewScoreCheck will be less than 0 if CurrentScore is less (alphabetically) than RecordhighScore
'NewScoreCheck will be greater than 0 if RecordHighSchore is greater than CurrentScore
If NewScoreCheck < 0 Then
MsgBox(CurrentScore)
Try
MsgBox("In the try statement. Writing new time")
Dim FileWrite As System.IO.StreamWriter
FileWrite = New System.IO.StreamWriter("PoisonHighScore.TXT", False)
FileWrite.WriteLine(CurrentScore)
FileWrite.Close()
Catch
MsgBox("Saving error")
End Try
Else
MsgBox("Not the fastest time.")
End If
Else
MsgBox("You lose.")
End If
strExit = MsgBox("Do you want to play again?", vbYesNo)
If strExit = vbYes Then
Application.Restart()
End If
End Sub
Edit 1: I am using some variables as TimeSpan which is why I have the values CurrentScore and RecordHighScore as Strings. When I am using TimeSpan it will not store as an Integer and will return an error. I am looking for a way to compare two times but need to store them in such a way that they can be compared which is why I used the compare string method mentioned above. I understand after looking at the solution below as to why I cannot. My question now becomes how do I store them since it cannot be stored as double, single, or integer?
To make it a little more clear think of two racers who finish with two different times and those times being unpredictable. The fastest time would win and we would write to the text file (which I know how to do) the time of the winner.
P.S. I have also tried the CInt(CurrentScore) < CInt(RecordHighScore) but that just returns an error too. Any help again would be greatly appreciated and thank you for taking the time to help me with this.

Answer 1

Right off the bat it looks like you're doing some implicit type conversions such as:
CurrentScore = lblTime.Text
Presumably CurrentScore is a numeric data type (like an Integer or Double), but you're setting the value equal to a String. To correct those errors, turn Option Strict on. Looking even deeper, this appears to be your problem because you use the String.Compare method to compare the scores alphabetically. To give you an example, String.Compare returns -1 when you pass 1112 and 121 as your current score and high score respectively, but obviously 121 is quicker than 1112.
What you need to do is convert all numeric values as numeric data types and then compare them using the appropriate comparison operator.

Answer 2

If you want the Timer to behave like a stopwatch then why not use a StopWatch? If you use a StopWatch, you can get the ElapsedMilliseconds which returns a long. The Stop method only pauses the timer; you need to call the Reset method to reset the StopWatch to zero. Call this after you collect the ElapseMilliseconds into a variable.
NewScoreCheck = String.Compare(CurrentScore, RecordHighScore) Strings are not compared in the same way numbers are.
Dim a As String = "72"
Dim b As String = "100"
If String.Compare(a, b) < 0 Then
MessageBox.Show("a comes first")
Else
MessageBox.Show("b comes First")
End If
Result b comes first!
Using a MsgBox to check values is not a great idea. Visual Studio has all sorts of great debugging tools. Inevidibly you will forget to remove a MsgBox; I have :-). Use Debug.Print which will not be in the release version.
Dim sw As New Stopwatch()
Private Sub BeginGame()
sw.Start()
End Sub
Private Sub OPCode2()
Dim TimeInMilliseconds As Long = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds
Dim TotalBalls As Integer = 2
Dim SelectPoison As Integer = 2
Dim RecordHighScore As Long
Dim CurrentScore As Long
If TotalBalls = 2 And SelectPoison = 2 Then
sw.Stop()
CurrentScore = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds
sw.Reset() 'So you can play again and get a new time
MsgBox("You win.")
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Debug.Print($"Current Time is {CurrentScore}")
If CurrentScore > RecordHighScore Then
Try
Debug.Print("In the try statement. Writing new time")
Dim FileWrite As System.IO.StreamWriter
FileWrite = New System.IO.StreamWriter("PoisonHighScore.TXT", False)
FileWrite.WriteLine(CurrentScore.ToString)
FileWrite.Close()
Catch
MsgBox("Saving error")
End Try
Else
MsgBox("Not the fastest time.")
End If
Else
MsgBox("You lose.")
End If
Dim strExit As MsgBoxResult
strExit = MsgBox("Do you want to play again?", vbYesNo)
If strExit = vbYes Then
'Not a good way to do this, clear your variables and UI
Application.Restart()
End If
End Sub